


The List

by Steed



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, John is befuddled, M/M, Sherlock is so fucking arrogant, There is no way Sherlock could be a virgin., ever., ridiculous pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 07:47:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14689641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steed/pseuds/Steed
Summary: The heartburn started almost exactly at the same time as the text came – incidental? I think not.





	The List

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all. I am new to posting fics. Characters are not mine, I’m just playing :)
> 
> So this is just a bit of fun. Hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> Love 
> 
> Steed

 

John arrived back at Baker Street early Saturday morning. Dropping his overnight bag just inside the door, he went straight for the kitchen to make himself some strong coffee. While waiting for the kettle he drank an impressive amount of water straight from the tap.

Dublin had been fun. Interesting lectures, copious amounts of Guinness and a lovely night with a woman named Claire. But dehydration and a thumping headache was threatening to put a damper on his mood and travelling through the night to save a few bob was an idea he now wished he hadn't had.

With coffee and toast by the surprisingly tidy double-desk in the front room (no case, then) he fixed his gaze in the middle distance of the street view and relaxed.

After only minutes he heard the door to Sherlock’s room open, and he turned with a smile ready on his face. However the smile faltered slightly and surprise overtook his features.

From Sherlock’s room strode a complete stranger. He stopped when he caught sight of John and nodded; a tall man, dressed in a suit and tie with a handsome kind of square face and blond hair.

"...Good morning" he said and nodded again. John's eyebrows crawled ever higher on his forehead.

"Eh, good morning" was his brilliant retort.

And that seemed to be that. The man opened the door and left the flat. John took a deep breath and when he looked up again he found his sneaky flatmate standing in the middle of the room wearing a blue silk robe.

He had a frown on his face and if ever there was a better illustration of bed hair, John hadn’t seen it.

"You were supposed to return this evening!" Sherlock stated.

John smiled. "Problem?"

He imitated Sherlock's innocent tone and facial expression with relish. Sherlock snapped his mouth shut, spun around and retreated back to his bedroom with a medium loud slam of the door.

John laughed out loud. Fantastic! Even super humans apparently had to get their rocks off every now and then. How marvellous. How very normal! Sherlock stormed back out again:

"Yes, very amusing!" he shouted.

Which made John laugh harder: "What?! I didn't say a word."

Sherlock fisted his hands by his sides and actually stomped his right foot:

"Well, you think loud enough for the whole street to hear!"

That had John bending over and nearly falling off his chair. This was priceless! When he managed to sit up again, Sherlock was standing right next to him, which was a little too close considering the skimpiness of that robe, and considering there was quite an overpowering smell of freshly had sex emanating from the willowy form it barely covered.

"Um...?" John stopped laughing and looked up into Sherlock’s deadly serious face.

"Don't tell anyone, John."

John leaned back a little.

"Oh, for... What?! Sherlock, we live in the 21st century! No one gives flying fuck if you're homo, bi or bloody quadruple-sexual!"

"No, I mean..."

"Oh, that you're human?"  John filled in sarcastically.

"It's a weakness!" Sherlock blurted. "Don't you understand?! The more people know about one’s personal likes and dislikes..."

 "And taste in men..." John interrupted, smiling again. Sherlock clenched his teeth.

"They can use it against me, John!"

John sighed and looked to the heavens.

"You want everyone to think you're above them. Including me, I might add. This has nothing to do with leverage and everything to do with your bloated ego, Sherlock. Hubris - that's my diagnosis for you. I recommend a treatment of getting your head out of your arse!"

He was still smiling, but there was no mistaking the acerbic tone of voice.

It had absolutely no effect on Sherlock, who was known for his terrier-like tenacity when holding on to his own agenda.

"So, you're going to tell everyone, hmm? Lestrade?  The rest of NSY? Put it in your blog, perhaps?"

John was beginning to tire of this conversation. "Keep your hair on. I won't tell a living soul, okay?"

Sherlock looked placated and turned towards the kitchen while John continued: "And for future reference, I don't mind you taking your dates home, just as long as I don't have to hear any of the hanky-panky going on. That's a courtesy I've been showing you so far and I think it should go both ways."

"They are NOT dates, John." Sherlock punched the toaster lever down.

"Jeez, whatever..." John returned to gazing through the window at nothing in particular.

Sherlock was not satisfied however. He is precise if nothing else, and isn't good with being misunderstood.

"I have a number of people I can ring, should the need arise. We meet, we fuck and that's it, John! There is no flirting, no prattling on about feelings and no DATING!"

At the word "fuck" John was choking on his coffee. It threatened to spurt out of his mouth, but he managed to regain enough control to prevent spillage. He coughed to hide his embarrassment and it took a while for the whole sentence to sink in.

"Wait, a number of people...? How do you mean? How many?"

"That's not the point, John."

"Don't ‘John’ me! How many?"

There was a slight pause in which traffic and also a barking dog could be heard from outside.  Sherlock pressed his lips together once and then sighed:

"I have twelve people, who suit me sexually, to choose from."

John's mouth fell open. He closed it again. And Sherlock started to shift nervously while John cleared his throat.

"So, let me see if I've understood this: you can phone twelve different people for sex at any given time, and I'm not allowed to go on a single date without you sneering, eye-rolling and pouting, not to mention interrupting?!"

This was not going the way Sherlock had thought a moment ago.

"I...don't indulge very often..." he tried, but John sprang up from his now forgotten breakfast, all mirth wiped from his face and took a few paces toward the door, then stopped.

He was visibly shaking with the effort of containing his anger. "And here I was, thinking you just didn't understand these things, that you were in fact incapable of relating to a person’s need to actually, physically congregate with other persons, due to fucking Asperger's or some such syndrome - wasn't I just a complete IDIOT?!"

Sherlock made a move to speak, but John wouldn't allow it. He held his hand up.

"No. Don't bother, Sherlock. I should have learned by now. Once again you have proven that you are a selfish BASTARD and won't think anything of taking for yourself what you gladly deny me! To think I had to go to fucking Dublin to get laid!"

He left the flat and slammed the door with maximum force. A full 10-pointer, hinges almost shattering.

Sherlock was left to ponder why he somehow always went wrong somewhere with his friend.

*

John thundered down the stairs and out the front door. He needed air and walked aimlessly for a little while and then opted for finding a news agent's to buy the papers and then a nice coffee house for a second attempt at breakfast.

It was shaping up to be quite a sunny Saturday. John's anger had dissipated somewhat after two cups of coffee, three (!) croissants and The Guardian's Weekend supplement. He was thinking about going to a good market, maybe Spitalfields, when he heard his text alert: a bossy and booming "John!" that Sherlock had playfully recorded to annoy John every time he sent a text.

John groaned, but nevertheless lifted his phone to read the message: " _Have you SEEN my lips? I was born to give head! SH_ "

Hmm. This was not what John had expected to read.

Another "John!": " _And the arse on me! God almighty! Don't you just want to bite it? SH_ "

John shook his head. Had he lost his mind? Had Sherlock?

Just then the door to the coffee house burst open and his flatmate pushed past tables and slightly annoyed customers:

"There you are! Have you stolen my phone? Why have you stolen it?! I need it! Give it back!"

John almost sagged with pure relief. "No, I haven't got it. It must be your...non-date that lifted it."

The face of utter disbelief on Sherlock was worthy of an Emmy for best comical actor. For the second time that day John exploded with laughter that was only fuelled by the humiliation that slowly crept up Sherlock's cheeks.

"Someone dares to mock Your Royal Pompousness?!" John giggled. "It seems one of your twelve sexually suited flavour-of-the-months has a few issues with your arrangement."

"Eleven." Sherlock snarled. "Pass me your phone!"

John handed it over, too overjoyed to demand please and thank yous. Sherlock hit the speed dial button for his own phone number and immediately launched into the answering person.

"You have exactly one hour to return my phone or I'll send my brother and the whole of MI6 after you."

John heard a tinny laugh and a kind of warbled answer. A familiar lilt. John's smile vanished as he looked up into Sherlock’s face.

His voice was deadly calm and eerily soft: "Moriarty, how droll."

Sherlock didn't need a phone box to change into his super hero guise. His face transformed into a steely mask of impassiveness right in front of his friend and his eyes were so intensely focused that he looked ready to start shooting laser-beams across the café. He listened to Moriarty on the other end of the line without moving, and then ended the call.

"What did he say?" John naturally wondered. Sherlock gave him his phone back.

"He's keeping my phone apparently. Says he wants to take a look at its content. Especially certain names in the contact list."

John mulled this over. "Do you think he means your lovers?"

"No, I think he means my dentist - of course my lovers!" Sherlock snapped.

"But why in God’s name?"

"Because he's as nosy as you and everybody else!" he shouted.

Other guests in the establishment were shooting them dirty looks by now and John tried to keep at least his own voice down.

"Look, I'm sure..."

"John!" went his phone. John glanced down at the text quickly followed by Sherlock:

" _John, you do realize that when Moriarty calls me The Virgin, he is being sarcastic?! SH_ "

Sherlock growled and reached for the phone, but John was faster and snatched it up from the table and clutched it to his fluffy jumper.

"What are you going to do, Sherlock?"

"Smash your phone, of course."

John thought as much and tightened his grip.

"You'll do no such thing. Go and get yourself a new phone with Mycroft's credit card and I'll call Lestrade."

That was the last straw it seemed. Sherlock jumped up sending his chair flying and pointed one of his long fingers at John.

"Don't you DARE call Lestrade! No one is to be told about this or I swear to God I'll... You said Mycroft." he suddenly broke off his own tirade. John looked confused.

"Did I?"

The manager of the coffee house was now making her way over to their table. Sherlock moved in a flurry:

"If Moriarty wants to play then so be it!" he exclaimed and looked suddenly cheerful.

"I'll see you back at the flat, John!" And he was gone before any complaints had been voiced. John shrugged and smiled apologetically.

John left the café, needing another walk to clear his head. Now the text alerts made him jump. He knew they were from Moriarty and he knew that whatever else he played at; he was in fact a real life, dyed-in-the-wool psychopath, and John tried as much as possible to steer clear of such persons. He picked his phone up tentatively and read:

" _I haven't told you this before, but I've actually had more cock than hot dinners. SH_ "

For some reason, that one got to him more than the other texts. He stopped walking and suddenly it felt like the scales fell from his eyes. Sherlock's manipulations, his changing personas - what if nothing John knew about him was actually true, in the sense that it represented the real Sherlock? What if John was just another pawn in one of his elaborate games? Sherlock always wore snug shirts and trousers. Silk and fine wools. His hair was always styled to look artfully ruffled. How the hell could John ever have seen him as an innocent when it came to sex? The man _exuded_ sex; and was by all accounts, as it turns out, essentially... A total slapper!

John switched his phone to silent and started walking again. He found himself in Regents Park surrounded by dogs, children, rugby players and tourists. But in his head, all of a sudden, he had started getting unbidden images. Of Sherlock.  Naked.  Doing things. Making sounds. And John had to sit down urgently. He found a bench nearby and hoped nobody had noticed anything strange about him. With trembling hands he checked his phone and found he had got four new messages. Messages that made the pulse throb in his neck and a deep blush spread on his face.

This was...disconcerting to say the least. And new.  And very, very strange. Strange because sitting on a bench in Regents Park he could still smell the heady scent from Sherlock's half naked body stood too close to him in the front room this morning. Was it this morning? He could recall minute details of the skin on part of his abdomen, still slightly shiny from sweat or... Dear God. This was very not good. He willed himself back to reality in the sunny park and when it was safe to do so, he got up and practically ran all the way home to the flat.

"Ah, John." Sherlock greeted him with his condescending posh git voice when John stepped into the front room of the flat again, a little winded, but feeling better for the run.

Sherlock continued: "I wanted to know if you heard anything more from our favourite criminal mastermind?"

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

"Um..." John really didn't see himself withholding what could turn out to be vital information in this case. So he nodded, opened all the texts on his phone and wordlessly passed it over. Sherlock read. And if there was ever any doubt in John's mind that Moriarty was texting the truth and nothing but the truth so help him, it vanished after seeing Sherlock's expression. He looked stricken.

"You read all of these..." he whispered, almost to himself.

Before John could speak, Sherlock cleared his throat.

"No matter. All this information stems from one or more of my bed fellows. Moriarty must have threatened them or maybe hurt them. Would he kill them? Possibly."

Sherlock started to pace. "Now, why is he doing this?"

"Well, that's easy." said John and shoved his hands down his trouser pockets. Sherlock stopped to look at him and John continued.

"He's practising."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, so John went on:

"Gaging my response, perhaps the response of other people around you? It's for when he intends to ‘burn you’, don't you think?"

Sherlock actually smiled at that.

"Well done. As usual, your bumbling thoughts are completely wrong, but they light up my path, John, they light it up." He emphasised this by pointing to the ceiling.

Then he started pacing again, the pads of his fingers touching his lips, perhaps wishing for a cigarette? He definitely had an oral fixation. John started to feel a little warm.

Going from having no information about Sherlock's private life to knowing far too much on one and the same Saturday (being hung over to boot) was taking its toll. Thinking about Sherlock's oral fixation was not conducive to the situation.

"Well, we should check if your 12 sex-disciples are all ok." John said, without knowing if he was trying for annoyed or amused.

"Hmm? Fine, I have to think." Sherlock waved a hand as if shooing John away.

"I'll need their names. I don't suppose you have their numbers?"

Sherlock huffed and stomped off to his room to fetch a little black note book, which he handed over open, with all the grace of a whining brat.

"The twelve on the left page are the ones I have logged on my phone."

John opened the book and there they were: 12 names with addresses and phone numbers (and another 10 names that had been crossed over).

 

_George Riley, 22 Hensham Place, Kensington, 072-273650_

_Michael Dunne, 14 Cotting Rd, Finchley, 078-639766_

_Juan Domingo, 6 Marylebone Rd, flat 103, 072-776390_

_David Sumner-Rhys, 10 Copper Mews, Westminster, 076-555784_

_Pierre Lauvant, 14 Rue de Chaval, Montmatre, +38 3566820_

_John Stiller, 7 Baker St, 073-6725439_

(Jesus! A John! On Baker Street, what the...!?)

_Gordon Aylesbury, 35 Manor Rd, flat 3, Islington, 073-977835_

_Chris Lynne, 26 Alexandra Park Rd, 078-8677356_

_Helmut Schultz, 13 Riefel Strasse, Kreuzberg +39 37665620_

_Peter Morris, 3 Berkeley Square, Mayfair, 073-9674556_

_Richard Morris, 5 Berkeley Square, Mayfair, 078-967756_

Oh! John Watson, don't you go there. They don't have to be brothers. Certainly not twins! It doesn't mean threesomes. Fuck, what is wrong with you!?

_Dean Nielman, 36 Arlington Rd, St Johns Wood, 074-0576531_

 

John suddenly felt Sherlock's glare.

"You don't have to commit them to memory, you know. Just bring the damn book with you."

Good lord, that's exactly what he had unwittingly done. Those 12 names had seared themselves to the backs of his eyelids! He remembered every single one!

"I... Yes, of course. I'll start with the guy who nicked your phone, shall I?"

"Yes. David." Sherlock winced a little.

Something occurred to John: "Sherlock, you said you ring them - is it never the other way around? Did...David call you this time?"

Sherlock looked appropriately ashamed as he nodded.

"Moriarty sent him here, and I never even suspected..." He mumbled.

"Right." John made to leave for the quiet of his own room to start making the calls, when Sherlock threw a long arm over the distance between them and grabbed John's wrist. He spoke in rapid fire tempo:

"Say you understand why I don't want anyone to associate me with any sexual proclivities because it's too closely linked with my past and you know I'm not like other people and I need to keep things compartmentalized or I can't focus on my work and if I can't work I'll go crazy and O.D. because honestly, it's not even worth the effort."

John stepped closer and patted Sherlock's hand on his wrist. His eyes had softened.

"Don't worry, Sherlock. We'll fix this, okay? "

*

The conversation with David went something like this: Blah, blah, Sherlock, blah, blah, this morning, blah, blah, I don’t know what you’re talking about, blah, blah, fuck off.

John didn’t feel so inclined to worry about the man’s health after that, but assumed that Moriarty had made it quite clear what the dangers were should David _really_ start to blab.

John sat on his bed, looked down to his lap and the next number in the little black notebook and sighed. Procrastination or curiosity – John didn’t know which drove him to start flicking through the rest of the pages. Some just contained seemingly unconnected words that to John looked like freeform poetry, although they were probably just dry data: Sheath Flow Arrow Time Swollen Root.

‘Hmm. Beautiful, really’ thought John. He leaned back, arranging some pillows behind his neck to get comfortable, and continued leafing through the book. Sherlock’s handwriting was beautiful too, with quick, confident strokes. John found himself being drawn in to a longer passage giving a detailed account of an autopsy he must have been present for.

“Anything interesting?”

John jumped and hurriedly closed the book, cheeks reddening. God, why was he so nervous around his friend all of a sudden?

“Sherlock, I…didn’t hear you come in.” Brilliant.

“So I gathered.” Sherlock stood in the middle of John’s room. The walls sloped off where the roof began and Sherlock looked even taller when he stood in the part with the highest ceiling. For a long moment Sherlock just held John’s gaze with that analysing expression that John had come to hate whenever it was directed on him. Simultaneously, though, it thrilled him a little too: He stupidly felt worthier, more important. He couldn’t help it.

“Well. I have decided to dispense with all of my previous bed fellows and start afresh.” Sherlock announced. “Mycroft assures me that none of them will contact me again.”

He'd taken that stiff posture that he adopted when he was about to perform, or show off, same thing. 

"I thought it efficient to start with you. If we are compatible it would certainly facilitate release should the need arise for either of us." He rattled this off as if he was listing names of bones in some part of the human anatomy. 

While doing so he lifted his left wrist up to meet his right hand and began to undo the cuff buttons on his ice-blue shirt with the very efficiency he called upon.

John stared and parsed this new turn of events for a moment and then shot up from the bed with panic written across his face. 

"No!" he shouted with a shrillness to his voice he'd never heard before.

"No! I'm straight!" Still shrieking. 

Sherlock stopped. 

"Excuse me?!" Complete disbelief. 

John composed himself slightly: "Well, like I said..."

"Please! You've all but locked your door and swallowed the key so as not to jump me. Especially since you discovered that I'm sexually active...hmm. Maybe not so active. Either way, make your mind up, John. I haven't got all night."

John’s face went through a rapid series of expressions: scandalized mortification, owlish confusion, intense concentration.

"Why?" John stuttered finally. He was sweating profusely while Sherlock looked as cool as a cucumber. A whole patch of them in fact. 

"Because I need to go to Berlin."

"No, I mean... You do?”

“Helmut may not have been involved in this. I need to speak to him.”

John shook his head.

“Well what I meant was…do you, um..."

"Do I what?"

"You know...like me?"

That gave Sherlock pause. He let his arms fall, glanced at his watch and sighed.

"You mean we shouldn't mix sex and friendship. You're worried that if we don't suit each other sexually it may be difficult to return to a platonic relationship."

That wasn't what John meant at all, but he nodded. By now it was ingrained in him to encourage all of Sherlock’s attempts at interpreting feelings.

"Yes that too." Nervous smile.

"Although I was talking about..." Come on, Watson, he chided himself.

"Physical attraction." There. 

Sherlock waved it away like a bad smell. 

"Irrelevant."

Then he caught himself. 

"Well, not to normal people perhaps, but to me there is only compatibility" he said by way of explanation.

John couldn’t stop nodding. Dazed and confused didn't cover it. 

"I think you should go to Berlin" he mumbled almost absentmindedly.

Sherlock looked decidedly put upon. But while he had never before been turned down, he usually had to make his intentions clear in a slightly more...appetising way. After all, everyone’s a stranger at first and the easiest way to take things further had always been to flirt. Hmm. 

When Sherlock looked back up at John he was wearing a completely different expression. He relaxed his body and lowered his voice. 

"You may like it, John" he purred and took a step closer. John gulped.

"Tell me, how will you know if your fantasies about me live up to the real thing if you don't try it?" Sherlock gave a small, innocent smile and took one more step. 

John automatically backed up until the folds of his knees collided with the mattress and he fell back on his bottom. 

"Let me see, what might you have thought about...?" 

Sherlock pretended to ponder this while parting his lips slightly; running a finger along his pink lower lip as if in deep thought. 

"Did you think about my hands? How they would feel against your skin?" John wanted to shake his head but he was unable to move a muscle. Not even to close his mouth, which was gaping stupidly. Sherlock laid the hands he mentioned on his own clavicles and moved his head back a fraction.

"Or maybe you thought about my lips..." He bared his throat a little more. John's eyes fluttered back and forth between the skin there and his mouth. 

"My lips on yours..." Sherlock made his voice breathy and advanced further.

"Or around your..."

"Stop!" John held a shaking hand out in front of him. 

"Stop, right there!" He looked wild eyed and frankly, terrified.

Not a response Sherlock was used to. It was bewildering: John clearly wanted him. There was a discernible bulge between his legs to prove it. 

He let his hands fall for a second time. With an exasperated growl he turned around and threw them back up again. 

"What now?!" he shouted, back to his normal self and John was somehow relieved. It helped him pull himself together. 

"Sherlock, this isn't going to happen." You maniac, he wanted to add, but didn't.

"It's true I...did...entertain a notion...just testing it out in my head..." Sherlock looked about ready to burst with the effort not to vent his impatience while John took time to wet his lips. An excruciatingly annoying habit.

"…but I'd never do anything about it, Sherlock. It's... You can't just turn gay all of a sudden!" he blurted. 

Sherlock closed his eyes and fisted his hands to restrain himself. Then he took a deep breath and turned on his heel. He managed to not slam the door, but thundered like a herd of wildebeest down the stairs. 

John collapsed back on the bed and wiped the sweat from his brow. That was... Unpleasant? Awkward? Hot! John's erection hurt against the inside of his jeans. He wanted nothing more than for Sherlock to leave for bloody Berlin already so he could have a spectacular wank. Wanking is safe. No one gets hurt. And it's nobody's business who you think about! Nor what you do to them in your mind. And how... Jesus. John was desperate. He threw a worried glance at the closed door. Closed. Not locked. He tried to will away the new images of Sherlock in seductive mode but they just popped right back and when the front door finally closed around Sherlock with a demonstrative bang, John came with a rather embarrassing  "tsshhnnghaaa" right in his buttoned-tight jeans.   


*

Sherlock returned a day later, and while John and he both made a valiant effort of pretending otherwise, the atmosphere in 221B Baker Street grew tenser by the moment. Soon Sherlock was scowling outright and John’s facial muscles hurt from perpetually wearing a cramped grin. Thankfully Lestrade phoned a day into the ordeal with a not very interesting case involving an ice cream truck and three fake nuns. Sherlock pounced on it and John tagged along like a grateful puppy.

Sherlock had bought a new phone (indeed using Mycroft’s card) and blown two of Moriarty’s deals sky-high to get back at him and left it at that. Moriarty had texted him once: “ _You are such a baby. Don’t you know I was only teasing_?” “ _So was I.SH_ ”

Sherlock went about arduously building up a new list of sex partners. He wanted at least ten to be sure he wouldn’t get bored too quickly. It was ridiculously easy to pull, but of course not all of them would make the list. With every new conquest however, Sherlock returned in the morning falling into a foul mood as soon as he saw John.

John, meanwhile, was slowly returning to his old, solid self and his patience with Sherlock constantly snapping and riling was wearing thin. One afternoon, when Sherlock made a snide remark about John’s new, brown corduroy shirt, with a pattern of tiny red horses, he put his foot down.

“What the blazing hell is your problem, Sherlock?!” he shouted in a very manly fashion. Sherlock, the bastard, just raised his eyebrows in mock surprize.

“I’m hardly the one with a problem, John, as I’m not in the habit of dressing like a colour-blind librarian.”

John nodded and set his mouth in a grim and malevolent smile.

 “That’s true: Because you want to look like a professional. A professional gigolo that is; pretending to be asexual, while flouncing around in expensive suits two sizes too small - and a sheet! A fucking sheet, Sherlock!”

John stopped himself to giggle a little at his own alliteration. Sheet, Sherlock. No sheet, Sherlock.

This didn’t go down well with Sherlock. He pursed his lips and stared ahead like the drama queen he was.

“I don’t flounce,” he sniffed. “And further more I hardly think prostitution would be close to hand should I ever need money – fraud is much more lucrative, and a lot safer.”

John ran his hands down his face in frustration.

“Look. What it boils down to is this: The fact that I turned you down, doesn’t mean you get to bite my head off every time I’m in the room!”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at this so John continued.

“And anyway, why the hell does it matter so much? You’ve got the whole of London at your beck and call: it seems the prospects are practically beating a path to your door.”

Suddenly Sherlock gave a slow grin that sent a chill down John’s spine.

“Yeees,” he purred, scaring the shit out of John. “They do, don’t they…?”

John had never seen anyone looking more like the mad scientist/evil mastermind of any given spy-movie. It did not bode well.

*

Then there was the case of The Vanishing House, which under the circumstances John enjoyed describing meticulously in the blog since Sherlock didn’t solve it per se:

“ _After three hours of crawling around in the cellar of the once neighbouring house, on all fours, cleverly disguised as a plumber, Sherlock Holmes came away with nothing more than two severely bruised knees. Still, when the charming Mrs Brown, who was the owner of the afore mentioned cellar and the house attached to it, informed him of the new postal address given to the house next to hers, he had the good grace to leave the scene without further ado.”_

John chuckled to himself.

But two days later Lestrade texted with a triple murder and the domestics had to be put aside. It was a fairly gruesome case, but fascinating all the same and the two of them forgot all about sleep and food and worked more or less non-stop for four days, the puzzle unravelling beautifully before their marvelling eyes. John was dead on his feet, but didn’t mind at all, the buzz kept him going all through his day at the clinic after the case was solved.

He left work that afternoon feeling light hearted as well as light headed. Sleep was the last thing on his mind – he wanted to celebrate. Sherlock wasn’t answering his text so he called Mike and they went for a slap-up meal and some well-deserved pints. He confessed to Mike that he actually felt quite shitty about the scathing entry he wrote on the Vanishing House-fiasco.

After waving goodbye to Mike outside the restaurant though, exhaustion started to catch up with John. He took a cab home, almost falling asleep in it. He had never been so happy to see the front door of 221B and dragged his feet up the stairs to let himself into the flat. The place was dark, but as he was about to turn around and head upstairs to his room, he froze mid step.

There had been a noise… An animal?

Nnnno. John’s heart was suddenly pounding as something close to panic spread like prickling heat through his body.

Muffled, but perfectly audible:

“Aaaooh-oh-oh-nnhha-ah-ah-aaah!”

Answered with:

“Ooorgh-uh-oorghhn-uh-uh!”

There were thumping sounds, bedsprings creaking and while John stood, sweating and unable to move, the whole cacophony crescendoed until John finally managed to cover his ears against the ridiculous volume.

Bastard!

John made his way as quietly as possible to his room and fell into bed. His arms and legs were shaking and his cock was so hard it threatened to burst the seams of his new khakis. That voice! That fucking, deep, bone-rattling, mind-shattering voice of his! And some…other…person…man…SHIT! Why did this have to happen to him? Everything was going so well! He continued cursing to himself as he saved the new pair of trousers from ruin and reached blindly for tissues in the bedside drawer.

John woke up the next morning and was momentarily afraid to go downstairs. He pulled himself together, though. He was a grown-up, for God’s sake.

Sherlock was alone by the kitchen table, sipping tea and skimming through the papers. He greeted John with a beaming smile. John had planned a speech about their previous conversation on not taking people home for noisy shagging, but he just didn’t seem to be able to form the words.

“Good morning,” was what he managed after nearly busting a blood-vessel trying.

“Mm,” Sherlock hummed cheerfully. Bastard. Bastard, bastard…git!

John tried to act casual while making coffee and toast for himself (none for Sherlock!) and then taking it through to the desk in the front room. He ate very quickly and fairly bounced up to put his plate and cup in the sink.

“Well. I’m off to work,” he said briskly.

“It’s Saturday.”

“Is it? Already?” John was almost whimpering.

“No.”

Sherlock lowered his paper to watch John scamper off with a complexion reminiscent of an asphyxiation-victim he’d once seen on one of Molly’s slabs. He smiled: The game was definitely on.

*

Penetrative sex… Penetrative, anal sex… Oh, God. John kept bumping in to people on the way to the tube. And so, who was on the receiving end? He swallowed and suddenly looked at the people around him with a ridiculous notion that they were able to hear his thoughts. He shook his head to clear it.

He had to repeat the shaking of the head so many times through his working day, that by three o’clock he felt a little dizzy, leading him to wonder if it was possible to give oneself concussion by clearing one’s head. And still they kept coming; it was so very difficult not to put imagined visuals to the sounds his flatmate had made yesterday. He thought back for the hundredth time: It had sounded as if Sherlock’s groans came half a second after the other man’s in their…rhythm. Implying..?

A small whimper escaped John’s tightly clenched jaws. Oh, how he wished he could go back to the old days, when Sherlock was untouchable, asexual even, and John tried to conduct his love-life with women who invariably left him, all with the same quip: I think you’re a lovely boyfriend and Sherlock is a very lucky man. Intelligent, independent and proud women, he had to add, as they would never let their lives be run by a man who trampled them down, who treated them like door mats, who expected to be waited on hand and foot, who deposited severed heads in their fridges…

Enough! John slammed his fist down on the desk of the consulting room, frightening a small child with a sprained wrist and her father too. John turned to his forgotten patients and stared at them. “I will not stand for it!” he exclaimed and then hurriedly faked what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Now then, let’s take a look at that arm of yours.”

John had made his mind up now. He was going to build up his very own list! Never mind trying to find a girlfriend – he was going to play fast and loose and he was going to make damn sure Sherlock knew about it. As soon as his shift ended he headed to his local and began ruthlessly flirting his way around the room, making some women slightly pissed off when he so obviously dropped them as soon as they said that they did not in fact want to go to bed with him instantly, and moved on to the next.

Finally the landlord told him to bugger off and conduct his sexual harassment elsewhere. As the evening wore on the amount of lager sloshing around in his bloodstream was becoming cumbersome, but in the end he _did_ pull in a club where he felt like the oldest man in the world. She was equally inebriated though, and once they made it to Baker Street and into John’s bed, they fell asleep in the middle of proceedings.

The whole thing wasn’t a total disaster however, because Sherlock was up and on full deduction alert the next morning when John’s conquest did the walk of shame to the bathroom before leaving. Sherlock looked as if he’d accidentally sucked on several lemons in a row, which was highly satisfying. Although when Sherlock’s…”bit of rough” would be an adequate description – came out from Sherlock’s room, the feeling abated.

Both men were silent until the man got the hint and left too. But then the proverbial dam broke.

“Really, John? That’s what you came up with?” Sherlock spat.

“And you? Honestly, yours looks like an overgrown chav!”

“Irrelevant. He is well endowed. It is one of my requisites.”

“For Christ’s sake! He wore a cap! Back to front!”

Sherlock pouted. “And yours was bow-legged.”

This infuriated John to the degree that he had to leave the kitchen and go and sit down by the desk so as not to clock Sherlock with his coffee mug. He stubbornly stared at the closed laptop in front of him until he heard a drawn-out sigh. Then a quiet sort of mumbling.

“Pardon?”

Sherlock cleared his throat and reiterated only slightly louder:

“You were right.”

John was sure he misheard again.

“Excuse me?”

He turned to look at Sherlock and saw him lean back on one of the kitchen chairs, shoulders slumped, hands resting in his lap, knees wide open. The tentative morning sun lent a soft glow to his silhouette.

“I did want you to think I was above bodily urges. It is so terribly pedestrian to be like everyone else: eat, sleep, get off – all these needs seem to clash with my admiration for the pure and cold intellect. While it may not appear so, I do genuinely care what people think of me. If they are to respect my genius, I can hardly be seen to bonk my way through the male populous of London.”

Sherlock looked imploringly at John…

“And I don’t…anymore. I just need some release every now and then.”

“…like everybody else”, John filled in and Sherlock hung his head dejectedly.

“Yes. Hence the list.”

John felt as if a bona fide miracle had just happened and his chest was all warm and fuzzy. A goofy smile was no doubt spreading on his face already when he heard the almost whisper again.

“But John…?”

John looked soppily into Sherlock’s pleading eyes.

“No one has made it on to it.”

“Made it on to…?”

“The list, John. The list!”

“Oh.”

John tried hard to come up with a reply to this.

“Um… Are you very picky?”

At this some of Sherlock’s previous irritation returned in the form of a crinkle between his eyebrows.

“That isn’t the point! I wish you weren’t quite so dense at times, John.”

Luckily John was still under the spell of the soft spoken Sherlock of a moment ago and he only smiled more tenderly. He tilted his head to one side and prompted:

“Then what is the point?” Darling, he almost added. And Sherlock reverted to the flustered child-like figure, trying to hide his face behind his too short fringe.

“I… I tried out 21 candidates for the list and a few of them were almost compatible.”

John’s smile suddenly felt a little strained, but Sherlock continued unperturbed.

“In fact they would have made it if it wasn’t for…”

Sherlock shook his head in frustration. Suddenly he got up and stalked over to John. Once there John felt like swooning as his friend gracefully sank down on his haunches in front of him and carefully put his long-fingered hands on his thighs.

“John” he said, quite decisively.

“Yes.”

“John…” he repeated.

“Yes.”

Something in Sherlock’s bright eyes seemed to slip away from him and into John’s thumping heart.

“If I take you out on a date, would you at least consider to, please, fuck me?”

John immediately did his famous cod fish impression, so Sherlock naturally misunderstood him:

“No, I mean a real date: wining and dining – the whole…caboodle.”

John didn’t even know what had shaken him the most: the use of the word date, fuck or please. And then there was the matter of putting them together and realising what the man had just said.

This proved to be too difficult apparently because all John could do was to stutter:

“The…caboodle?”

Sherlock smirked, clearly pleased that John was at last catching on.

“Yes!” he beamed. “All of it.”

Then he sprang up like a Jack-in-the-box on a sugar high and fairly bounced back towards the kitchen.

“I’ll text you when I’ve decided where to take you. I’m off out. Need to see a man about a horse corpse.”

Grabbing his coat from the hook on the door, he gave John a small salute and left. The fact that he hadn’t actually asked John out, nor waited for an answer, didn’t occur to him until he was already in a cab and by then it didn’t really seem all that important.

Truth be told, the thought never occurred to John either. The only thing his poor head could house as he poured cereal into his coffee cup and brushed his teeth with aftershave was a single word: Caboodle.

*

The heartburn started almost exactly at the same time as the text came – incidental? I think not. Ping! “ _The Ivy. 8 pm. SH”_ And hey presto: An eye wateringly acidic burp made itself known to the world and specifically to the next patient waiting on the threshold to John’s consulting room. The sprained-wrist-child was back with her father in tow. They shot each other looks while John pointlessly beat his chest with the side of his fist and coughed to disguise his inability to stop saying caboodle. Mercifully the text alert noise was no longer “John!” in bossy Sherlockian; thank you Moriarty.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment. I don’t have a beta and English isn’t my first language. Apologies for any errors.


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